


It Might Just Save Your Life

by drunkkenobi



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment RPF
Genre: 1960s, Comedy, Gratuitous Movie References, M/M, Minor Injuries, Romance, The Old West, Time Travel, brief mentions of period typical racism and homophobia, no covid 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:53:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27293737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drunkkenobi/pseuds/drunkkenobi
Summary: Ryan and Shane are having the time of their lives. The only question is -- what time is it?
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 26
Kudos: 95
Collections: Skeptic Believer Book Club Hallowe'en Fic Exchange 2020





	It Might Just Save Your Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doradita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doradita/gifts).



> You asked for time travel, so I hope this scratches that itch! I kept it mostly lighthearted, but there is some mild angst, as that's pretty standard for time travel stuff. Also, the mentions of period typical racism and homophobia are not overt and maybe even milder than they would actually be. 
> 
> Also, in this 2020, there's no Covid, so no mentions of that. And the haunted location mentioned isn't real. 
> 
> Title from Huey Lewis & the News "Power of Love" and the summary is a riff on a Back to the Future tagline. Big thanks for Bee for helping with the fic premise and the beta! <3

It was just supposed to be any old ghost hunt. Creepy old sanitarium filled with gross remnants of the past, ghostly or not, pretty standard stuff.

And then fucking Shane picked up that fucking puzzle box.

“What’s this? Seems out of place,” Shane said, turning it over in his hands.

“Dude, put it back.”

“Look at it, it’s got all these gears and stuff, like one of those steampunk people made it. How’d this get in this nasty old morgue?”

The curiosity got the better of Ryan and he leaned forward, making sure to shine his camera light on it. It was a two-inch cube covered in intricate markings and gears that glinted copper under the camera light. As Ryan looked closer, he realized some of the gears were actually moving, clinking faintly.

Ryan didn’t like that at all.

“Shane, put it back.”

“Why? This is the one cool thing we have ever found at one of these places. I wonder if it’s a movie prop or something, didn’t you say a couple horror movies shot here?” 

“I’m not kidding, set it down,” Ryan warned as an uneasy feeling overtook his stomach. “Maybe it’s a booby trap.”

Shane ignored him, still investigating the cube. “Huh, look, there’s a button. I wonder what’s in it?”

Ryan reached out in a flash to grab his wrist. “Shane, no!”

In the blink of an eye, everything changed.

No longer were Ryan and Shane in the Brevard Sanitarium, surrounded by their crew and a bunch of graffiti-laden walls. They were in the middle of a cobblestone street, horse and buggies on either side of them, dozens of voices shouting from the sidewalks.

“What the fuck?!” Ryan yelled, his heart beating rapidly against his chest.

“Um,” Shane said, very unhelpfully.

“Is this a fucking hologram? Katie? Teej?” Ryan swiveled his head around, desperately trying to find them, but they were nowhere in sight.

“Get out of the road!” someone driving a carriage yelled in a British accent. “Filthy street rats.”

“Street rat?” Ryan frowned.

“No...it can’t be,” Shane muttered. “That’s...no.”

“What can’t be?”

Shane looked down at the cube, then back up at horses stomping by and finally at Ryan.

“We have to go.”

“What? What the fuck’s going on?!”

Without an explanation, Shane grabbed Ryan’s wrist and wove in and out of the carriages and people until they were in an alleyway.

“Jesus, what is that smell?” Ryan gagged.

“I think we’re near a trash incineration plant,” Shane said grimly. “But it’s good, no one will stick around here long enough to pay any attention to us.”

“And where is ‘here’, exactly? Where are Katie and TJ and why aren’t we in the sanitarium?!”

Shane ignored him and started unbuckling his GoPro harness. “You should take yours off too.”

“Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on!” 

“I don’t know, Ryan! But it sure as fuck looks like we’re in Victorian England and we need to start blending in, like, right now.”

Ryan’s stomach twisted in on itself so quickly he almost threw up. “No...Shane. No. This is a dream, we can’t— _I_ can’t…”

“I know,” Shane said, squeezing Ryan’s shoulder. “We need to put all the camera shit in our pockets.”

Fingers numb, Ryan struggled to undo his harness and camera. They couldn’t...time travel wasn’t...it wasn’t real. There were no flux capacitors in real life, it was all fiction. How? What could—

“I TOLD YOU TO PUT THAT GODDAMN CUBE BACK!” Ryan roared.

“Jesus, keep your voice down!” Shane shushed. 

“I told you! I said! And you didn’t fucking listen, you never fucking listen!” Ryan continued on, his voice high and his palms sweaty. “I knew, I knew someday you’d fuck yourself over with your skeptic white guy bullshit, but you just HAD to take me down with you, huh? We’re gonna fucking die in a Charles Dickens novel, Shane, all because of _you_.”

Shane had the decency to look ashamed of himself as he pocketed Ryan’s camera gear in his mustard yellow coat’s pockets. “I’m sorry, okay? But we’re not gonna die. We just need to push the button again. I think.”

“You think.”

“Well, yeah! What else do we do?”

Ryan didn’t have a better idea, but he refused to give Shane the satisfaction of being right. “I’m gonna push it this time. You obviously fucked it up.”

Shane rolled his eyes but held out the cube anyway. “Fine.”

“I guess grab my shoulder so you don’t get left here to die of cholera.”

Shane gripped onto Ryan’s shoulder as Ryan took the cube into his hands. It was lighter than he imagined, weighed maybe a pound, but on the scale of weird shit going on right now that rated near the bottom.

“Alright Doc, let’s go back...to the future.”

Shane grinned, launching into a wheezy Christopher Lloyd impression. “Eighty-eight miles per hour, Marty!”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Ryan pressed the button. The sounds and smells of Victorian England were gone, but wherever they were, it wasn’t home. 

“Oh my God, what is _that_ smell?”

“Ryan, look,” Shane said, his voice small and full of wonder.

Ryan had to blink a few times as the sun shined right in his face. It was a hundred shades of brown and yellow as far as he could see, from the desert sands and ramshackle wood buildings to the galloping horses and weather-worn faces of the people shuffling by. There was no mistaking where and when they were. 

The Old West.

“Dude.”

“I know,” Shane said. “Wish I had worn my cowboy hat.”

Adrenaline flooded Ryan’s veins as visions of Tombstone and Back to the Future III danced in his mind. Of all the times in history, this was one of the few Ryan had ever truly been interested in. It was a shame they’d have to leave it so soon.

“Okay, grab my shoulder so we can try this fucking cube again.”

“Now, hang on a second,” Shane said, his finger tapping against his chin. “Who says we have to try again so soon? Maybe the ol’ cube needs to recharge to get us back to the 21st century.”

Ryan stared at him. “You just want to fuck around in the Old West.”

“And so what if I do? C’mon, Ryan, we _time traveled_! It would be a shame to let this very rare opportunity go to waste!”

“Sure, but we could also very easily fuck up the future here! What if one of our cameras or phones falls out of our pockets and someone finds it and it changes the entire world and then we never meet and then there’s a paradox and the entire universe implodes?!” Ryan ranted as anxiety surged through his body. 

“Yeah, or we can steal some clothes and walk around in the Old West for an hour, maybe meet Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday.”

“Goddammit.” Ryan sighed. He couldn’t say no to that. “One hour. And we have to get a bag or something for our gear.”

“Deal.”

They snuck around a small row of houses at the end of town, snagging bits of drying clothes when they could. Ryan figured he could get away with his jeans and ghoul boots, he just needed to replace his tiki shirt. Shane, in his maroon chinos and mustard yellow jacket and eighteen miles of leg, was a bigger problem. 

“This is...not ideal,” Shane said as he stepped out from behind the tree where he was dressing. 

He was in a pair of high-waisted black pants that were a good six inches too short, exposing his pasty white shins and his striped socks sticking out of his own ghoul boots. He’d also found a vest to wear under his jacket, but it was hilariously oversized, like a dark yellow potato sack.

“You have no idea how badly I want to take a picture of you right now,” Ryan said with a laugh.

“How come you get the cool duster and I’m stuck with this mess?”

“Because I’m normal height, big guy,” he grinned, patting his shoulder. “Actually, I’m probably tall for this era, huh?”

“Maybe,” Shane muttered. “You got everything in the bag?”

“Yup, all our other clothes, phones, GoPros, harnesses, and my Apple watch.” Ryan held up the rucksack he’d found. It didn’t smell very good, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “You got the cube?”

Shane delicately patted his jacket pocket. “Got it.”

“Well then, pardner, ready to paint this town red?” Ryan asked in his best western accent.

Shane tipped his nonexistent hat. “After you.”

They walked into town, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, but it wasn’t easy when one of them was a giant and the other wasn’t white. Stares and whispers followed them, giving Ryan’s stomach a whole new reason to be uneasy.

“I think this was a bad idea, big guy.”

“I’m starting to think so too,” Shane said with a swallow. “Let’s get out of here.”

They started looking for an alley to duck into, but before they could, a large intimidating man with the bushiest mustache Ryan had ever seen stepped in front of them.

“You boys new in town?” he asked, voice gruff.

“Uh, yeah. Just passin’ through,” Shane said.

“Interesting attire ya got there,” he commented, eyeing Shane’s vest. 

“Oh, thanks. Y’know, we don’t want to take up anymore of your time—,” Shane started but the man interrupted him.

“Wouldn’t you know it, I have the exact same vest.”

Whatever color existed in Shane’s face instantly drained. Ryan himself was too terrified to speak or move.

“No kidding,” Shane said with a squeak. “Great minds think alike, huh?”

“My wife made mine just for me,” the man said, pushing back his duster to reveal a Colt revolver. “Isn’t that interesting?”

“Sure is!” Shane cleared his throat. “Hey Ryan, remember that time a guy bumped into you at the fair and you freaked him out?”

Ryan did, of course, one of his favorite stupid stories about himself. He didn’t have any idea why Shane was bringing it up now. Unless…

“What are you talkin’ ‘bout?” the man asked, his equally bushy eyebrows flying up.

With gumption Ryan didn’t even know he had, he forced his trademark floaty, uncomfortable high-pitched moan out of his mouth. Bushy Mustache was so confused he dropped the hold on his duster.

“What in the fuck?”

It was just enough of a distraction for Shane to reach into his pocket and grab Ryan’s hand.

“See ya, buckaroo!”

With a blink, the old west was gone. They were in a forest unlike anyone Ryan had ever been in before, the trees so tall and thick that he could barely see the sky above.

“When are we now? And where?”

“Not sure. Kind of reminds me of the Amazon jungle,” Shane said, looking around. “It’s as hot as I’d imagine the Amazon to be.”

“Click it again. I’m not in the mood to get bitten by a thousand-year-old mosquito carrying some disease I’ve never heard of,” Ryan said.

Shane did. Now they were in a city, obviously sometime in the 20th century. Ryan wasn’t sure of where, but one look at the movie theater across the street told them when.

“1985! Dude, look, what are the fucking chances?!” Ryan said excitedly, pointing at the “BACK TO THE FUTURE 1 4 7 10” on the marquee.

“Uh, extremely low, I’d say,” Shane said, rubbing his eyes. “This is...wow.”

“Maybe this is the cube’s way of telling us it’s trying to get us back home, y’know? Back to the future!”

“That makes no sense.”

“Shane, we’re time traveling. Nothing makes any goddamn sense,” Ryan told him. “Man, I wish we could go see it. To be able to see Marty on the big screen, that’s like a childhood dream come true.”

“Why can’t we? It’s not like we don’t have the time.”

“Money, ya dingdong. All our cash and cards won’t work back here.”

“Since when has money ever kept someone from seeing a movie?” Shane said with a sly grin. “C’mon, let’s sneak in.”

“How?”

Shane chuckled. “You really were a goody two shoes in high school, huh?”

“At least I wasn’t some owl-stealing delinquent,” Ryan shot back.

“Ooh, stealing an owl and sneaking into movies, you got me, Ryan. I was the true bad boy of Schaumburg,” Shane grinned. 

“Okay then, _bad boy_ ,” Ryan leered, putting as much mustard as he could on it. “Sneak us into this movie.”

Shane’s entire face and neck turned a bright pink. “Uh, yeah, okay. Let’s—uh, we should get out of these clothes first. Less conspicuous.”

Ryan grinned to himself. He loved getting Shane off-kilter, and for some reason, “boy” nicknames were the easiest way to do it. 

After changing back into their 2020 clothes, which were still a little odd, but not as bad as old cowboy gear, Shane snuck them into the movie. It was a very tricky method involving Shane fishing out a plastic cup from the trash and telling the kid taking tickets. “Refill! Sorry, forgot my ticket!”

“Yeah, whatever,” the kid said, pulling her Walkman headphones back over her ears as she let them pass.

“You’re a real Danny Ocean,” Ryan said as Shane trashed the cup again. 

“Look, once you’ve worked at a movie theater, you realize that no one in the business gets paid enough to give a shit,” he explained. “As long as you’re not blatantly trying to screw them over, they’re not gonna care.”

They ducked into the theater. The movie was half over, but Ryan didn’t care. Getting to watch his favorite movie the way the world originally got to see it was good enough for him.

But watching Back to the Future wasn’t the romp Ryan expected. Once Marty returned at the end and his entire world was different, Ryan’s stomach ached. What if he and Shane did that? What if they finally got back to 2020 and they didn’t recognize their lives? The movie made it seem like Marty’s life was better, but it still wasn’t one he knew. What if that happened to him? What if his parents were different? His brother? What if he didn’t even have a brother? What if they did something and Unsolved never existed? Or Watcher? What if Ryan was still a grip, depressed and without direction? 

What if— _oh god_ —the Lakers had never signed LeBron? 

“Um. Are you okay?” Shane asked as the credits rolled.

“We’re gonna ruin it. Everything we have, it’s gonna be different when we get back and I’m not gonna know my mom and LeBron’s gonna still be a Cav and Steven will never let me hear the end of it. If I even know Steven. Maybe he’s back making Tide Pods now.”

“Ah.” Shane rubbed a hand over his face. “We’ve barely even done anything, there’s no way our lives are going to be different when we get back.”

“You don’t know that. It’s chaos theory, time travel 101.”

“You’re mixing up your movies,” Shane said. “Just because we, what, stole some clothes in the 1870s and watched a movie in 1985 doesn’t mean you won’t recognize your mom. C’mon, Ryan.”

“You don’t know that it won’t!”

“And you don’t know that you will,” Shane reminded him. “I know telling you not to worry is like telling a bear not to shit in the woods, but seriously, you can’t worry about this too much. You’ll go nuts.”

“But aren’t you worried that we’re gonna, like, cease to exist?” Ryan’s palms began to sweat just at the thought of it.

“Ryan, look. Every single day we could cease to exist. That’s just kind of how life is. What difference does a little time travel make?” 

Ryan let out a small laugh at that. “Look at you, leaning into your nihilist role. Katie would be proud.”

“Also disappointed that I didn’t save it for the podcast,” he grinned. “I’m serious, though. Every day is a fucking nightmare that could be the last. Time traveling doesn’t change that.”

“That’s weirdly comforting, in a dark way,” Ryan admitted. “I’m still terrified we’re gonna fuck up the future, though.”

Shane patted his shoulder. “I know.”

“Hey, you guys can’t just, like, stay in here,” a voice said from behind them. It was the same bored movie theater employee from earlier. “Like, at least sneak into the bathrooms or something.”

Shane pulled the cube out of his jacket pocket. “Ready to try again?”

Ryan grabbed his wrist. “Go for it.”

Leaving a surely confused teenager in their wake, Ryan and Shane blinked into an unfamiliar city. Many of the buildings had completely digital windows, advertising brands Ryan had never heard of in a variety of languages. The only vehicles around seemed to be bicycles and smooth bullet trains, criss-crossing the streets. And the people were all in strange clothing—soft, billowy cloaks in a rainbow of colors. 

“Uh. Any idea what time period this is?” Ryan asked as he tried to take in the overwhelming sight.

Shane was watching one of the digital window screens, his eyebrows furrowed. “The future. Look, this ad says ‘warranty expires 2259’.”

“Holy _shit_.” Ryan looked up around them in awe. The fact that humanity still existed two hundred years in the future was better odds than he’d imagined. 

“We should go,” Shane said uneasily.

“What, why? We can find out everything that happens, see how big Watcher made it, how many championships the Lakers have, whether Spielberg ever made Indy 4!”

“That’s _exactly_ why,” Shane countered. “You have seen Back to the Future _II_ , right?”

“We’re not gonna become Biffs,” Ryan said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t you want to know what happens to us? Like, if something bad happens with Watcher, we can totally fix it so it doesn’t happen!”

Ryan’s mind was racing with the possibilities. He could find out every shitty thing that would happen and he could fix them all. He could keep his family healthy and Watcher afloat and not be plagued by worry every single fucking second of his life. It was a dream scenario. 

“I really don’t,” Shane said. “And I don’t think you should know either.”

Before Ryan could protest, Shane grabbed his arm and clicked the cube.

When they reappeared in a strange forest, Ryan was so furious he physically pushed Shane away from him.

“What the fuck?!”

“I’m sorry, man, but we can’t know that stuff. It’s too dangerous,” Shane said. “Wonder where we are now? I don’t recognize these trees.”

“Too dangerous?! You were JUST talking about how nothing matters because we could die anytime and why we’re fine to just skip through time, but knowing the future is what’s dangerous?!”

“Yes! How do you not get that?”

“And how do YOU not get that getting to live the rest of my life without worrying about everything is all I’ve ever wanted?” Ryan shouted before turning away. 

“Ryan…,” Shane said quietly.

Ryan dropped their sack of old clothes and cameras. “No. I can’t deal with you right now.”

With that, he stomped away.

* * *

Ryan walked out of the forest, hoping to get a better sense of where and when they were. It was mostly green rolling hills dotted with the occasional farm. In the distance, though, he saw a large pagoda that helped him narrow it down.

He found a large, twisty tree with elegant red leaves to sit under. He recognized it as a Japanese maple—his mom had insisted on planting one in their backyard in Arcadia. It was as close to home as he’d been since this whole fucking mess started. Its branches comforted him, like a pair of long arms wrapping him up in a hug.

Ryan wasn’t sure how long he sat there, knees pulled up to his chest and cheeks wet. The sun was beginning to set a stunning orange when Shane shook him out of his thoughts.

“Apple?”

“What?”

“Apple? I found a bunch. Fujis, I think,” Shane said, sitting down next to him at the tree trunk. “Also got some grapes and other berries.”

Ryan wanted to tell him to fuck off but his rumbling stomach was louder. He grabbed the apple and bit into it with no decorum. “Oh wait, shit, is this stuff safe to eat?”

Shane stared at his half-eaten berry before dramatically pretending to choke. Ryan elbowed him hard in the ribs while Shane just laughed. “I think it’s okay.”

“Asshole,” Ryan muttered.

“Never said I wasn’t.”

They ate in silence until the sun was completely gone. It was incredible how much darker the night was without any light pollution. Even through the tree limbs, Ryan saw more stars than he ever did in LA.

“You know, bringing me food doesn’t mean I’m not still mad at you,” Ryan said as popped the last of the grapes in his mouth.

“I know.” Shane ran a hand through his hair, scrunching it up between his fingers. “I’m not going to apologize. I think looking up the future is a rotten idea. But I get why you wanted to.”

“Would it really be so bad to know how the rest of our lives go? Like, who we marry and how many kids we have and how we die? Don’t you at least want to know that?”

“Nope.”

“But why? It’d make everything so much easier!” Ryan argued. “Like if you found out your future wife’s name was Melissa, then when you meet a Melissa at some sadsack duderock concert, you’ll know she’s the one!”

“But what if I don’t want to marry Melissa?”

“Well, you won’t right away, but you will! And you know it will work because you read on your future Wikipedia page that you were married for fifty years and had two kids and, I dunno, a hundred orange cats.”

“But what if I only marry her _because_ I read that future Wiki page, but I don’t actually love her and it’s fifty years of misery and cat hair?” Shane argued back. “What if I was really supposed to marry someone else, but I didn’t, all because I read something that said I should?”

Ryan frowned. “I don’t think that’s how it works, dude.”

Shane shrugged. “Might be. That’s why it’s better not to know.”

“I still think I’d wanna know,” Ryan told him. “Even if it’s bad news, I could prepare myself for it.”

“Wouldn’t you then spend all your time waiting for and worrying about the bad shit to happen?” Shane asked, his eyebrows raised.

Ryan laughed, knowing Shane was right. “Ah shit. Probably.”

“See? Told ya,” Shane grinned. He was only illuminated by moonlight now, a pale streak across the planes of his face. Ryan was used to seeing him in the dark, but not like this. It—Shane—was striking.

“If you want to get some sleep, I’ll take first watch. I don’t know when else we’ll get time to catch some shut eye.”

“Probably a good idea.” Shane pulled the cube out of his jacket pocket. “Here, in case we need to make a quick break for it.”

As Shane passed the cube, he let his hand fully envelop Ryan’s as he added. “We’ll get back, Ryan. I promise.”

Ryan let his fingers stroke the underside of Shane’s wrist for just a moment before breaking apart. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, big guy.”

* * *

After leaving feudal Japan, Ryan and Shane visited some of the most historic moments in, well, history. The French Revolution. Hapshepshut’s reign of Egypt. Ancient Greece. A blizzard in the area that would one day be known as Donner Pass. The Gupta Empire. New Orleans at the height of jazz. Even a strange little French town where, in two years, some people would dance to their deaths.

Even though they never spent more than half a day where they were, it was an incredible journey. Ryan saw things he could never fully put in words, the strangeness and beauty of times and places no one in the present day had ever seen. Shane, meanwhile, was a chatterbox, his big history brain working overtime to try and contextualize their destinations before they had to leave again.

Ryan still desperately wanted to get home, but if he was stuck traveling through time with someone, he was glad it was with a history dork.

“So, where’s this?” Ryan asked as they blinked away from 19th-century Caribbean pirates to the strangest forest they’d been dumped in yet. Every tree and plant was totally unfamiliar to Ryan, even the air seemed different. 

“No clue.” Shane looked around. “Feels weird here. Like the air doesn’t seem quite right.”

“Maybe we’re so far in the future all humans are dead and the earth is regrowing,” Ryan suggested. 

“Maybe. Oh hey, look!” Shane pointed to a strange looking bird that was about three feet long and a foot high. “What the hell is that?”

Rightfully scared of nature, Ryan didn’t want to stick around to find out. “C’mon man, let’s go.”

“No, wait, what is this little fella?” 

Shane knelt down, holding out his hand. The weird bird hopped forward, shaking out its feathers and tilting its head. It was so weird, the bird was both totally alien, yet very familiar, but Ryan couldn’t place it until about twenty more weird birds hopped out from behind the trees.

“Shane...we have to go.”

“C’mon, we can give it a few. He’s about to let me pet him.”

“We’re about to be The Lost World’ed, you fucking idiot.”

That got Shane’s attention. He lifted his head, audibly gasping when he saw all of them.

“ _Dinosaurs?!_ ”

“Compys, I think,” Ryan said. “Stand up slow, I’ll come to you and we can blink outta here.”

There was about five feet between them, but with twenty little hungry dinosaurs surrounding them, it may as well have been a mile. Ryan inched towards Shane, trying to avoid the noisiest sticks underfoot. The compys kept inching in closer, their heads cocked like any modern-day bird. The fact that Dr. Alan Grant was right about dinosaurs being like birds was not as much comfort to Ryan as he would’ve hoped.

One of the compys got close enough to Ryan to sniff their bag of cameras and clothes. Ryan silently tried to shoo him away, but the little fucker was too curious about the new smells. He was so close to Shane, though, just another few steps and they could grab hands and time travel away.

Then the bag broke.

The compy bit through the bottom of the sack, spilling 21st century camera equipment onto the forest floor of the Jurassic. Ryan swore, the compys screeched, and Shane yelled.

“Get it! Just grab it!”

Ryan scrambled, trying to haul everything into his arms, but the screaming dinosaurs were not making it easy. A few of them nipped at his feet, thankfully not able to penetrate the ghoul boots’ exterior. Ryan kicked at them as he tried to secure everything, but every time he did, a harness or a GoPro would slip from his grasp.

“FUCK. Shane, help me!”

“Funny, I was gonna ask you the same thing,” Shane replied, strained.

Ryan whipped around to see him punching at a compy who had sunk its nasty little teeth right into Shane’s calf. A dark stain bloomed over his pants as it held on.

Every other concern fell from Ryan’s head. Nothing else mattered. He had to save Shane.

With a guttural yell, Ryan chucked clothes at the dinosaurs, hoping it would scare them off. A few backed off, but not enough. He tried throwing a GoPro, but the one on Shane’s leg would not let go. 

Fuck it.

“Where’s the cube, let’s just go!”

“No!” Shane gasped. His face was losing color by the second. “Can’t take it with us!”

“I don’t care!”

Suddenly, the forest floor shook. Something big was coming. The compys began to scatter as a twenty-foot dinosaur burst through the trees. Ryan didn’t know which one it was, but it was gigantic and terrifying.

The big dino picked off all the compys that it could, finally scaring the one on Shane’s leg enough to let go. Ryan was so scared he didn’t even have the ability to appreciate the Jurassic Park parallels. Trembling, he grabbed the cube from Shane’s pocket and held him tight.

 _Please take us home, please please please_ , Ryan pleaded silently as he pressed the button.

When they reappeared, they were in a parking lot. Ryan had never been more grateful for asphalt under his feet in his entire life.

“Shane, Shane, you okay?”

“I’ve been better,” he said weakly. Time travel apparently did not fix wounds; he was bleeding all over the ground.

“We’re somewhere recent, I’ll go find help,” Ryan said, but Shane grabbed his arm. 

“Wait. You gotta...you gotta hide all our stuff. This isn’t 2020,” Shane said, nodding to the mid-century cars surrounding them. 

“Who gives a shit, you’re bleeding!” 

“ _Ryan_ ,” Shane demanded. “Hide it. I’ll be fine for five minutes.”

Furious, Ryan shoved what was left of their 2020 gear under the nearest car. “There, it’s hidden! Now, c’mon, can you stand?”

“Ryan!” Shane said, his eyes wide with panic. “You have to—what are you doing?!”

Ryan was wrapping his arm around Shane’s back. “I’m helping you up, jackass. Stand with me.”

“I’m too tall,” he murmured.

“Shut up, Shane,” Ryan snapped. “I know you hate needing help, but right now you do, so just shut the fuck up and stand up on your good leg.”

Finally, Shane relinquished. Hands tightly gripped in Ryan’s shirt, he allowed Ryan to stand them up. The height difference _was_ an issue, Shane had to stoop over to get his arm comfortably around Ryan’s shoulders. Ryan thought he may have to carry Shane if they were going to have to walk much further, but then he saw the building attached to the parking lot the cube had brought them to.

_Cedars-Sinai Medical Center_

Ryan nearly wept with relief. 

_Good job, little cube. Good job._

* * *

While Shane was being treated for his “dog” attack, Ryan made a plan.

While the cube had brought them to somewhat modern times on this jump, there was no guarantee it would for the next. Or the one after that. For all Ryan knew, they could spend the next week or two or hell, even the next month, jumping throughout the thousands of years of human history without antibiotics. 

Ryan wasn’t going to take that chance.

But that did leave them with a whole new set of problems. Their cash and credit cards wouldn’t fly here, and Ryan only had about two bucks in change that he wasn’t even sure would work. They needed food and somewhere to sleep while Shane recuperated and that meant they needed money.

Ryan fished a newspaper out of the waiting room trash and scoured the want ads. He’d need something low-profile, where they wouldn’t ask for ID. (Of course, did people even ask for IDs back in the 60s? Ryan wasn’t sure, but it was better to be safe than sorry). His options seemed to be limited to stockboy or dishwasher. As long as they paid enough for a couple weeks in a motel, Ryan didn’t care what he had to do.

When Shane was finally discharged, he was a mess. His pant leg was all bloody and torn, revealing a large, white bandage in its place. They’d given him a cane to help get around, but every step looked agonizing.

“So, where to now?” Shane asked as Ryan retrieved their 2020 gear from under the car.

“The bus stop. There’s a restaurant a few miles away looking for a dishwasher, hopefully they’ll hire me,” Ryan said, stuffing their phones into his pockets and their remaining GoPro into Shane’s jacket.

“What? I meant with the cube, let’s go.”

“No, no time traveling, not until you’re better.” 

“What?! Ryan, we can’t actually _stay_ here, are you crazy?” Shane squawked. 

“Are _you?_ Do you really think it’s a good idea to go to literally any time before antibiotics were invented?” Ryan pointed out.

“We’ll just keep jumping until we get back to the present! Future, whatever.”

“How long could that take, Shane? We’ve been doing this, what, a few days now? And 1985 was as close as we’ve gotten. We have no idea how long it will be until we get back, and I’m not risking you getting sepsis in 1400s Russia or wherever,” Ryan said, his arms crossed. “So buckle up, buttercup. We’re hanging out here for a few weeks.”

Pink crawled up Shane’s neck onto his cheeks. “Okay, okay. But for the record, I think this is a bad idea.”

“And for the record, I think you’re a fucking idiot.” Ryan waved him on. “C’mon, bus is this way.”

It took a few hours and three different bus routes, but Ryan was finally able to snag a dishwashing job at a little diner run by one of the nicest couples either of them had ever met, Frank and Mary. They were so thrilled to not have to wash the dishes themselves that they let them eat dinner for free. It was easily the best hamburger of Ryan’s entire life.

With six of the eight whole dollars Ryan earned that night, he and Shane checked into a Motel 6. Who fucking knew that’s where the name came from?

“How’re you feeling, big guy?” Ryan asked as he collapsed onto one of the beds.

“Like a dinosaur bit a chunk of my leg off and then I spent all day on and off a bus,” Shane grimaced as he eased down onto the other one.

“Jesus, with everything going on, I kind of forgot that we saw actual fucking dinosaurs this morning.”

“Right? Like, holy shit! I wonder if whoever invented our little cube saw them too, or if we’re the only people ever.”

“Still, a small club.” Ryan pulled the cube out of his pocket, examining it. “You know, I asked it to take us home on this last jump. And it did, kind of.”

“Just off by about fifty years,” Shane said. “I wonder why it works the way it does. Why you can’t input a date or location.”

Ryan shrugged. “And how did it end up in a haunted sanitarium in 2020?”

“I guess it’ll have to remain...unsolved,” Shane teased, doing a purposefully terrible impression of Ryan’s theory voice. 

Ryan laughed, tossing a pillow at him. “Dork.”

After taking their first showers in days (or in Shane’s case, a bath with his injured leg hanging out of the tub), exhaustion hit them both. Ryan curled up in bed and waited for sleep to come.

“Hey Ryan,” Shane whispered.

“What?”

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

Shane didn’t elaborate and Ryan fell asleep wondering why.

* * *

Ryan spent most of the week at the diner, his fingers constantly wrinkled from dishwashing. But it was worth it, even beyond the admittedly meager pay. Frank and Mary always sent Ryan home with leftover food at the end of the night. One less thing for him and Shane to worry about procuring.

Shane, meanwhile, wasn’t doing much of anything, hoping that all the rest would allow his leg to heal faster. He did go buy them some 60s appropriate clothes one day, garishly colored shirts and wide-legged pants that didn’t fit either of them. 

“This shirt is so itchy, how did anyone survive in all this polyester?” Ryan griped as he tried on his bright-yellow shirt. 

“Look, we gotta buy the cheap stuff, okay? And the shopgirl assumed I was a hippie, so we got what we got,” Shane said, adjusting the sleeves of his fringed jacket.

“I mean, aren’t you a hippie? With your hair and hatred of capitalism?”

Shane grinned, holding up a peace sign and doing his trademark Austin Powers bit. “Groovy, baby.”

On Sunday, Mary insisted Ryan take the day off, worried that he was working himself to the bone. Without a lot of money to do anything, he and Shane went to Griffith Park. Shane couldn’t walk very long without needing breaks, but it helped stretch the day out. They were taking one of those breaks when a father and son playing catch caught Ryan’s eye. 

“Do they look familiar to you?” he asked, nudging Shane.

“Huh? No one here looks familiar to me, as we are not from here.”

“I mean, is that guy famous or something? I swear I’ve seen him before.” Ryan squinted, trying to get a better look of the dad. He was average height, maybe a little shorter, and had tan skin and dark curly hair. The little boy looked similar, giggling as he ran after the baseball.

“I don’t think so,” Shane said. “If he looks like anyone, he kind of looks like you.”

“Maybe that’s—,” Ryan stopped short, jumping to his feet as the realization hit him. “Holy shit.”

“What’s—what’s this? Did you see a ghost?” Shane teased.

Ryan swallowed. “Yeah. My grandpa.”

“What? It can’t be. Are you sure?” Shane asked, struggling to stand up in a timely fashion.

“It is, I know it.” 

“Ryan, LA county is huge, what are the chances your grandpa and dad are out here playing catch today?”

Ryan ignored him and began to walk closer to get a better view. He knew that was his family, no matter what Shane said.

“Ryan!” Shane hissed. “Get back here!”

“No.”

“This is a very bad idea, you know!”

Ryan wheeled around, fire coursing through his veins. “I’m not going to tell them anything about the future, jackass, how stupid do you think I am?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Shane said gently. “I just think that’s gonna hurt. A lot.”

“Yeah, well sometimes things are worth getting hurt for,” Ryan said, turning back around.

He grabbed the bench nearest where his dad and grandpa were playing catch, trying his best to not seem like a creep. It wasn’t easy, though. He’d seen pictures of his family from this era, of course, but it was completely different to see them in person. To watch his dad, no older than 6 or 7, running with abandon, missing about half of the balls Ryan’s grandpa threw. And his grandpa...Ryan had seen the pictures, knew he had been a handsome young man, but he really was striking. Every time he smiled, Ryan grinned himself. The same smile across two generations.

Ryan was trying to think of an icebreaker when his dad’s terrible aim did the work for him. He threw the ball with his little arm wide left, landing right at Ryan’s feet.

Ryan picked the ball up, turning it over in his hands. He’d never really liked baseball and he could only remember tossing a ball around with his dad once or twice. Basketball had always been the sport of choice in their house, playing one-on-one with his brother or the both of them against their parents. The longing for his family hit Ryan so hard, he almost didn’t hear his grandfather’s voice.

“Hey! Sorry, do you mind?”

His voice was different, younger, brighter. But there was no mistaking it.

“Oh, uh, yeah, here you go,” Ryan said quickly, giving the ball a toss.

His grandpa caught it easily, flashing his Hollywood smile. “Now, Stevie, what do we say?”

“Thank you,” Steven Bergara said. He was a cute little kid and Ryan couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him.

“You’re very welcome, Stevie.”

“We just gotta work on that aim, little man, and next thing you know you’ll be playing for the Dodgers!” his grandpa said, giving Steven’s hair a swirl. 

“Yeah, I bet!” Ryan agreed.

His grandpa turned to walk away, but he stopped, eyeing Ryan. “Sorry, but have we met? You look so familiar to me. Mateo Bergara?”

“No, I don’t think we have,” Ryan said, his heart suddenly in his throat. He wanted so badly to hug him and tell him he loved him one last time. “I’m just visiting for a little bit.”

“Ah. Thought you might be a long-lost cousin. You never know in a big Mexican family, y’know?”

“I do,” Ryan nodded, thinking of the family reunions so big where they would rent out an entire restaurant and still have to ask for extra chairs, so many cousins and aunts and uncles across multiple generations. “I’m half.”

“Ah, I knew it! So you are family, even if not by blood,” he smiled.

“You could say that,” Ryan said as he felt tears hot behind his eyes.

“Enjoy your visit then, primo!” his grandfather said, turning back to play catch with his son.

As much as Ryan wanted to stay and watch them, he knew he had to leave. Quickly, he got up and tried to keep the tears at a minimum. Shane was waiting for him on a nearby bench.

“Don’t you fucking say anything,” Ryan snapped. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Shane said softly. 

“Let’s go. Back to the motel.”

They walked silently back to the bus stop. Ryan could feel people staring at him, but in 1967, he couldn’t be sure if it was because he was red-faced and crying or because he wasn’t white or because he was with a gigantic, limping hippie. He hated it. He hated this whole fucking escapade. Why the fuck had a time traveling cube found them? Why couldn’t he just go back home and hug his parents?

On the bus, Shane untied the bandana from around his head.

“Here,” he said, handing it to Ryan. “Makeshift handkerchief.”

“Thanks,” Ryan muttered, wiping under his eyes.

Shane’s hand opened, like he was going to pat Ryan’s leg or something, but he quickly closed it, thinking better of it. Instead, he spread his legs a few inches so that his knee could press deliberately against Ryan’s. For the rest of the bus ride, Ryan focused on the pressure to keep from losing it. 

Once they were back inside in their motel room, Ryan finally let it all out.

“I fucking hate this, Shane, I hate it. I hate this fucking year and how I can’t go anywhere without people staring at me and I hate that I had to leave my grandpa without telling him goodbye and that I’ll never be able to tell my dad about this and I miss my family and I miss sushi and my Xbox and Lakers compilation videos and I just want to fucking go home!”

“I know,” Shane said softly, laying a hand on his shoulder.

Instinctively, Ryan curled into him, faceplanting into Shane’s collarbone. “Why won’t it take us home? Why, Shane? Why?”

Shane wrapped his arms around him. “I don’t know.”

* * *

The next morning, Ryan awoke to the sun beaming directly in his eyes. That couldn’t be right. He was supposed to be up early, to get to the diner for the breakfast rush.

He blinked at the clock. It was after 8, two hours later than it should’ve been.

“Oh no, the alarm fucked up,” Ryan groaned, panic surging through his body. Mary and Frank, as nice as they were, were gonna kill him.

“No, I turned it off,” Shane said matter-of-factly, crossing from his bed to sit on the edge of Ryan’s. He was fully dressed and sipping on coffee, like he’d been awake for hours.

Ryan sat up, eyeing him suspiciously. “What? Why?”

“Because you’re not going to wash dishes ever again.” Shane sat the time travel cube on the end table between the beds. “Take it. Go home.”

“What the everloving fuck are you talking about? You’re still having to change your dressings every day, we can’t leave yet.”

“ _I_ can’t leave yet,” Shane corrected. “But you can. And you should.”

“I’m not going to leave you here in 19-fucking-67!” Ryan yelled, flabbergasted that Shane would even suggest it.

“I’m keeping you from going home. I can’t in good conscience do that anymore, especially in this shithole time period where people are even more racist than usual. It’s not fair to you.”

“And what, you’re just gonna stay here and meet me back in 2020 as an old man, like Cap in Endgame? What the fuck Shane?”

“Not necessarily. I figure I’ll go get a job at that sanitarium as soon as I can. Then I’ll wait for the cube to show up and start my own way back. I can handle a few years in the 60s. Hey, maybe I can go to Woodstock!” he grinned, like that made his cockamamie plan okay.

“That is insane. You are insane. Absolutely fucking not,” Ryan said, blood boiling with rage. “For all you know, that cube showed up the same day we investigated the sanitarium. You could be waiting 50 years!”

“Then I’ll wait 50 years,” Shane said as he nudged the cube towards Ryan. “Go be with your family, Ryan.”

“You are my family, you absolute fucking moron!” Ryan yelled.

That shut Shane up. Good. Because Ryan had more to say.

“You think that I would ever, in a million fucking years, be able to handle the future, present, whatever, without you?! We _own a company together_ , do you really think Watcher would last five minutes without you? What about Unsolved? What about _your_ family? Scott and your parents and your other friends? What would I tell everyone? What would I do? Tell me, Shane. Tell what the fuck I would do without you?”

“Not end up on a neverending time travel odyssey, for starters,” Shane muttered miserably.

“Newsflash, big boy. I would rather end up on a thousand time travel odysseys with you than spend one day in the future without you,” Ryan said, punctuating the end with a strong grip on Shane’s arm.

Shane turned his face away, but he didn’t try to shake Ryan off of his arm. When he finally spoke, his voice was watery. “I was just trying to help you.”

“Well, stop. You’re bad at it.”

Shane choked on a laugh as he set his coffee cup down on the floor. “I guess I am, huh?”

For years, Ryan had wondered if his and Shane’s love for each other was something more. He wasn’t always sure himself, the lines between the coworkers and co-founders and friends and family blending into one big Shane-shaped blur. But now, Ryan knew. Only an idiot in love would consider spending 50 years alone to save him. 

Emboldened, Ryan gently grabbed Shane’s chin and turned it towards him. “You can make it up to me.”

Shane’s eyes closed, his dark lashes stark against his skin. “We can’t.”

Ryan scraped his thumb over Shane’s stubble. “Why not?”

“It’s not safe, this time period. People suck, everything sucks.”

“Shane, you’re the historian here. You know gay people weren’t invented in 1988.”

“I know,” Shane whispered, reaching up to stroke his fingers down Ryan’s arm. “But I want to keep you safe.”

A montage of memories flashed through Ryan’s mind, of Shane making him laugh in front of ghosts and demons, of Shane whisking them away from the future and the information it held, of Shane taking the lead at liveshows, knowing they made Ryan a nervous wreck, of Shane dancing to “Mamma Mia” just to make Ryan smile. 

Ryan pressed their foreheads together, letting their noses slide against one another. “You already do.”

Their lips met, softly sliding against each other. Ryan stroked Shane’s cheek with his thumb while Shane curled a hand around Ryan’s bicep. It was so easy, like they’d done it a thousand times before.

“Is the Do Not Disturb sign on the door handle?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Ryan pulled Shane down on top of him, kissing his lips, his chin, his neck, anywhere he could reach. 

“Wait, my leg,” Shane said with a wince.

“Oh right.”

Ryan slid out from underneath Shane and let him turn over on his back before climbing back on top of him. 

“Better?”

Smiling, Shane cupped the side of Ryan’s face. “Yeah.”

They stayed like that the rest of the morning, kissing and touching, exploring the only parts of each other they didn’t know. The first time Shane touched Ryan’s dick, Ryan had to shove his face into a pillow to keep from crying out. Ryan had fooled around with a few guys in college, but it felt different here. The stakes were higher, the risks were greater, and so was the reward.

“You’re beautiful like this,” Shane murmured, his grip tight and slick around Ryan’s cock. “Everything we’ve seen on this trip doesn’t compare.”

“ _Shane_.”

“I can’t wait to get back to the future and tell everyone ‘Pyramids, schmyarids, have you see Ryan Bergara naked?’” He leaned in to kiss up Ryan’s jaw to his ear. “Gonna tell the world, Ry. Gonna tell them all how much I love you.”

It was all Ryan could do to turn his face back into the pillow as he came hot in Shane’s hand. Whether from Shane’s words or the circumstances around them or his first orgasm in two weeks, Ryan felt an overwhelming sense of relief. They could do this, they could survive this journey of traveling through time, no matter how long it took. 

* * *

It took three more weeks for Shane’s dinosaur wound to heal enough that Ryan felt they could take a chance on the cube. His skin was still pink and tender, but he didn’t need bandages and could walk on it fine. Ryan had even made him run around the motel a couple times, just to make sure.

Ryan thanked Mary and Frank for the job, explaining he and Shane had to be on their way. They were gracious and sweet, to the last. Ryan made a mental note to look up if this diner was still here in the future.

They packed up a bag of their original clothes and gadgets, along with some 60s keepsakes; the key to their hotel room, ticket stubs to You Only Live Twice, a few of their least itchy 60s clothes, and a copy of their last day’s paper, at Shane’s request.

“Why do you want a newspaper? We can just look up today on Wikipedia when we get back,” Ryan pointed out.

“It’s a special day,” Shane said, tossing it to him.

Ryan opened the Los Angeles Sentinel to read “U.S. Supreme Court OKs Interracial Marriage Idea”. 

“Oh. Wow. I didn’t realize that was today.”

“I just thought it’d be neat to have, you know?” 

Ryan leaned up on his toes to press a kiss to Shane’s cheek. “It is.”

Face flushed, Shane cleared his throat. “So, we got everything?”

After slipping the newspaper into their duffel bag, Ryan zipped it up. “Yup.”

Shane pulled the cube out of his pocket with one hand and grabbed Ryan’s hand with the other. “Wanna press it together?”

“Sure.”

Holding his breath, Ryan pressed the strange little cube’s button. He had a good feeling about this one.

“Oh goddammit,” he groaned as they reappeared in an old artist studio. A man with long hair and a beard to match jumped, yelling in a language Ryan guessed was Italian.

“I really thought we were gonna do it on that one,” Shane frowned.

“Same. Who’s this guy?”

“Well, he's painting the Mona Lisa, so I think we can safely say it’s Leonardo da Vinci.”

“Oh cool, like the Ninja Turtle,” Ryan said nonchalantly, just to hear Shane sputter. “See ya, Lenny Nards!”

They pressed the button again, this time returning to a graffiti-covered morgue in a haunted sanitarium. 

Katie, TJ, Mark, and Devon all jumped, Mark even nearly dropped his camera. They were the most welcome sight Ryan had ever seen.

“What the fuck just happened? You guys just went POOF for five seconds and now—Ryan, what are you doing?!” Katie shouted as Ryan swept her up in a hug.

“Why are you in different clothes? What happened?” TJ asked before warning. “Do not hug me, Madej.”

Shane wrapped his arms around a very reluctant TJ. “Too late!” 

“Seriously, what is going on?” Devon asked as Ryan moved on to give her a big bear hug too.

“That cube that Shane picked up, it was a time travel thing, and we went all around history. Took us a while, but we made it back,” Ryan explained.

“Okay Shane, what really happened?” Katie asked.

“Where else would I get these sweet duds, man?” Shane grinned, twirling in his flared jeans. 

“Here, we’ll show you the cube, although you can’t press it. Shane, where is it?”

“I thought you had it.” 

“I did, but I dropped it the minute I saw everyone.”

Ryan and Shane scoured the floor for the cube, but there was no sign of it. It must have fallen on its button and blinked away into another time period. 

The crew was still pretty disbelieving until Ryan and Shane sat down and told them the whole tale. Even the most hardened skeptic like TJ had to admit there was no other explanation for how they’d disappeared for only a few seconds here to return with a bunch of stuff from the 1960s and a dinosaur scar.

As they walked away from the sanitarium, hand-in-hand, Ryan felt a sense of ease wash over him. He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but he knew that as long as Shane was by his side, they would make it through. 

That’s the power of love. 


End file.
